12.06.2012 Faster, Harder, Louder: Wacken 2012

Soon will be there. Only 50 days left and anticipation is rising day by day. Already for the 7th time in a row the promoters announced a sold out and the 75000 tickets were out of stock faster than ever before. Already in November the sold out reached. The line-up is huge (nearly 150 bands) and all kinds of rock and metal are there so that there are possibilities for newcomers and already established bands.

Last years bands: The newcomer Powerstroke, metal dinosaur Ozzy Osbourne and a guarantee for fun Airbourne

So there will be the first concerts already on Wednesday morning on the Wet Stage and the new Headbanger Stage. Here the Metal Battle winners will compete each other in a battle of musicians and this on two stages standing next to each other inside the new Bullhead City Circus. The Bullhead City Circus is replacing the last years alread extended tent and is one of the largest and most modern tents worldwide. Already the dimensions are breath taking. The 8 pylon tent offers an area of more than 6350m². As a comparison: that is round about the area of a soccer field! The only disadvantage: The way from main area to the Bullhead City Circus being situated near camping ground C is longer than the distance between former WET-Stage / Bullhead Stage and main area. Anyhow on Wednesday there will be well known faces like Mambo Kurt or the legendary Wacken Firefighters because the main area will open for the first time on Thursday. So there will be enough time to get in the right mood for the real big ones with a cold beer at the beer garden or the mideval games at the Wackinger Village.

From Thursday onwards everybody will really go for it on (nearly) all stages with the base rule: "Faster, Harder, Louder!" getting to reality again. Well known guys like Skyline or Saxon will be there. U.D.O. will celebrate his 25th band anniversary with special guests and Volbeat will finally heat up the masses. By the way when talking about special shows: There will be several this year. I already listed up the first ones but that will not be all of them. Sepultura will be on stage together with the 16 guys of the percussion ensemble Les Tambours du Bronx just as the Norwegian metal band Dimmu Borgir sharing it with an orchestra and a choir to make the evening a special one. Further on Ministry will give a best-of of his songs and Leaves' Eyes will reactivate their legendary viking ship show. Long time you did not hear anything about them but many of you will remember the crazy guys with their sharp hairstyle and shoes from the upper north of Europe. The Leningrad Cowboys have opened the Buena Vista Vodka Club and are hoping, that may of you will clink their glasses with them. On Saturday it will get wistful when the German primary rocks of rock music will have their very last open-air concert in Germany. Already for some time now the Scorpions from Hannover are on their farewell tour and will also stop at the Schleswig-Holstein town Wacken.

It was getting hot last year with Heaven Shall Burn and Subway to Sally

No matter if it will be black metal, death metal, hard rock, power metal, metalcore, industrial, gothic or what kind of metal ever, all will be gathered here and the metal fan saying: "I am not able to find anything that I like!" I would like to see. But that is also the issue again: The agony of choice. So many good bands making it hard to decide the right ones and it will not be only one time that two of them will play at the same time on different stages in parallel. But as the ways are not that long it is no problem to change quickly from one stage to the other.

No more than 50 days are left over, then the trail to northern Germany will start to praise the heroes of metal, drink one or the other alcoholic beverage and meet people from all over the world because that is what Wacken is making up. Not only the big parties on the festival area but also the small ones and meetings all over the camping ground. The only thing that remains is to hope that weather will be more like shine and not like rain. So: See you at Wacken - Rain or Shine!